Six Months Before

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.
- Dr. Seuss

Inside his private mansion, on his Whalestrand estate, Cleveland Jeremiah Sharpe sat in his study and polished the dagger.

The newly-christened Sharpe Manor was not really his. It had sort of... fallen into his hands, like most things had. But it had been acquired long before the purchase of Aqualand had ever come to fruition, as sort of a safety net in case things went south in America. And while they hadn't per se, he had been started to be viewed through a lens of suspicion for a while. A lens he didn't particularly want on him for extended periods of time. In any case, it meant no more expensive and boring long-distance flights to inspect the parks progress.

In fact, the way that Sharpe was looked at in Whalestrand was refreshing. There was none of the inherent cynicism of America - it was all wide eyes and outlandish gossip. It was almost like he'd started afresh, with how many wild stories and flights of fancy buzzed in the press and on the street like inquisitive wasps. Was he a wilful dreamer, brought up from poverty in some far-flung farming state? The product of infidelity between a rich countess and some vagabond? A charming rogue from some other dimension, or perhaps another planet? Plenty of speculation, but very little detail.

That was good. Keep things vague and the punters filled in the details themselves. And when you let them do that, you had them in the palm of your hand.

The winter sun was low, so even the largest window permitted only a little light into the room. But what little that did come in still made the metal of the short, pointed blade gleam dully against the clinical white of the cleaning cloth Sharpe ran over it. 

The dagger was not the only unusual thing in his study. On the furthest wall, a large engraved mezzotint depicting some old-world country manor marred the pale surface like a black bruise. Rows of glass cases showed other curiosities - masks, bas-reliefs, statues, arrowheads, jars, a strange whistle. Locked in its own separate case with an iron padlock, a canine skull grinned without mirth from behind the reinforced glass. Something on the mahogany desk faintly glowed and span, the pinkish-purple light throwing weird highlights on the sharp, eagle-like face of its current owner.

It would be trite and inaccurate to say that Sharpe did not believe in the supernatural. In a world that persistently proved that the supernatural existed, such beliefs were the equivalent of putting a hessian sack over one's head to escape the sunlight. Far better to say, perhaps, that he had no romantic ideas about the supernatural. He saw them for what they were and attached no greater significance or fable to them. He put no stock in superstitions or flights of fancy - he stripped the phantom and the banshee and the alien bare and saw their bones, without finery or adornment. 

And that meant he saw their worth.

Ten Years Before

WARNING: Mentions of animal abuse and suicide. Reader descretion is advised.

Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us!
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov 

Berufjörður, Eastern Iceland
November, 2012

Julius Eriksen, captain of the fishing boat Hvidhal, was not sure about what he was going to do.

He knew what he was going to do, of course. He'd been paid a lot of money for it, by a man who spoke with a strange accent and had said a lot of big words. And he was nothing if not a man who knew his trade very well, and wanted badly to support his family through that trade. Three thousand US dollars was not something you sneezed at, not if you knew anything about exchange rates and cared about keeping your house.

But Julius was starting to have second thoughts, the intrusive little voices that, just as you find yourself set on doing something, pipe up and go "Here, can't we have another talk about this?"

It was a bad time to have them, too. He was on the deck of the Hvidhal, and they were waiting for word from the boats that had gone up ahead. The day was fine - no clouds, a pale blue sky, but still chilled by an icy sea wind blowing in from the west. A wind that pulled at the tangled mass of his hair and beard and threw the faint, salt spray of the waves over the side of his boat. His men were waiting all around him, as tense with anticipation as he was.

So the second thoughts were very unwelcome at the moment.

Seven Years Before

Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.
- Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight

For a long time, mankind has found amusement in the suffering of others. There's something about seeing somebody go through some sort of pain and knowing it isn't you that's darkly reassuring or entertaining. It appeals to the remnants of ape in the back of the head, the part of us that looked at what the leopard just did to their troopmate and think 'hey, that's one less male I have to fight to chat up Doris over there'.

When the average man does it to the average man, it's called schadenfreude, and people laugh about it. When governments do it to the average man, it's called tyranny and people tend to do something about it, or at least grumble. The Romans were smart enough to sell popcorn when they did, which made it entertainment and so it was okay, even though people were still getting killed horribly.

When humans do it to animals, its a lot more complicated. Some animals, like dogs and cats, were smart enough to realize that acting cute was an eternal meal ticket for them. Anything done to them was considered unthinkable. Others, like cows and pigs, weren't so quick on the uptake, and so nobody makes a fuss when entire herds go into the big shed and never come out again. 

And then there were those who were quick on the uptake, but they weren't dogs or cats, so it didn't matter. And the only people who cared were those in white coats, and okay, maybe they stroked you and fed you fish, but that was as far as that went. You didn't have fur or big honest eyes, so there was nothing preventing you from being shoved in a tank several times too small for you and made to do somersaults. When people did that to animals like that, it was called entertainment. The ideas the Romans left behind were a lot more tenacious than first thought.

Or perhaps not.

In 2016, The Orca Welfare and Safety Act was passed by the California Assembly. It meant one thing, and one thing only. No more animal shows. No more dragging these actually quite intelligent out of the ocean and making them do tricks. No more breeding animals just to keep it going. Someone, somewhere, had turned around to ancestral memory of the Roman, the man who sat and laughed while a spear went through a lion's throat, and said 'no, this is not okay, and honestly your nose is hideous'.

There were a lot of people upset about this. But one of them wasn't.

Nineteen Years Before

For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.
- Luke, VIII. 17 (King James Version)

Mocrocks Beach, Washington State
April 4th, 2004

"This is stupid," grumbled Dave as he followed his friend James down to the beach.

"No, come on!" James called back over he shoulder as he ran ahead. "You gotta see this!"

Dave didn't really want to see whatever it was. He didn't even want to be outside, because it was cold and windy and the sky was full of iron-coloured clouds that threatened to drizzle. It was a typical April day, which meant it was spring, and Dave hated spring because it wasn't ever sure if it wanted to carry on being winter or get a move on and get to summer already. And he lived near the coast, which made it worse. The wind blew stronger from the sea and made you wear hoodies and jackets even when the sun was out.

He should have been inside, doing homework or watching TV. Anything a normal kid did. But then James had come round and said he had to come down to the beach with him. And James was the kind of boy whom, if you tried to attack him with logic, skirted around it with his own sideways logic that you couldn't argue with even though you knew it made no sense. So Dave knew it was pointless to try.

So here he was, following his idiot friend down to the beach. The wind was blowing hard, making him fold his arms over his chest in spite of wearing his hoodie, and it definitely looked like it was going to rain. And the seagulls were screaming, which irritated him even further,

This was so stupid.

His mood wasn't improved when he stumbled over the Step. That was the informal name for where the concrete slabs of the pavement ended and the dirt path down to the beach began. Time and weather had eroded it to the pint where it was just an inch shorter than you expected it to be, and a little loose as well. It took two massive steps and a lot of flailing for the boy to get his footing back, and his ankle stung in protest.

"Come on!" shouted James, who had gotten further ahead. 

He could have left him. He could have just turned around and walked back home and left the idiot out in the cold and the wind. Who cared about some dumb thing he'd found on the dumb beach on this dumb stretch of coast in this dumb village?

Dave huffed, shoved his hands in his pockets and followed.

Contrasts

There are two kinds of people in this world.

Fruits

The Agama Fruit Festival wasn't something the Kobbers got to see. It was one of those "off-season" events that the locals held, and it just so happened to be at a time when the group wasn't present for it. Which was a bit of a shame, because as the stalls rose up in the Grand Agama Market, bannas were hung and flags flown, it definitely would have been a sight they would have enjoyed, had they been there to witness it.

Those helming the festival had prepared all year for it. Stalls laden with the finest, ripest produce filled the streets with colour from one end to the other in a riot of hues. The scents, too, changed the air, replacing the drab smells of the air with the refreshing aura of green things, from the zest of maracuya and lulo to the floral hit of feijoa and so much more. No expense had been spared - everyone had a stall to call their own, and all of it lead down, like the threads of a spiders web, to the market square. It was here that those with a more enterprising mindset sold merchandise and more to any tourists that happened to be passing through.

The shouts of vendors as they bade customers come to sample their wares, the rows of well-tended fruits and the music that filled the air mingled together like threads on a tapestry, creating an atmosphere of relaxed jolity and well-being among the assembled people, Yes, it was a good time for the city. A time to relax and celeberate everything that was Agama. 

And, they assumed, with no superhumans or monsters to worry about.

They were proven wrong very quickly.

"AH-HA-HA-HA-HAAAA!"

Dying of the Light

WARNING: Mentions of emotional abuse, heavy existential dread. Reader discretion is advised.

You haunt me.

Ultraman Trigger looked out on the universe.

Billions upon trillions of stars, flashing like pinpricks in the inky darkness of the cosmos, unfathomable light years away. Nebulae swirled and churned in a rainbow storm of dust and life-to-be. Planets turned their circles, sometimes show and patient, sometimes at speeds incomprehensible to mortal eye. All around were lights, sounds, colours - things that would stagger the imagination of any human able to perceive it all in this way.

But Trigger could find no joy in it. No solace from his thoughts.

Every lie. Every sick joke. Every waking moment. Thousands of years gone and the memory of you still burns.

His almond eyes seemed fixed on a point so distant that mortal eye would bleed if it attempted the same feat. He did not breathe - his kind did not need to, and in this near-total vacuum there was no point. Behind him, the shining sun of Earth - Sol - raged on, throwing out its fire across the face of the one planet orbiting it that could ever support intelligent life. It looked close, but it also seemed somehow incredibly distant, as though perspective and distance had become optional things.

And Trigger knew, in the back of his mind, that there were thousands of other universes out there, with their own Sols and their own Earths, each doing the exact same thing. Some younger, some older.

He derived no comfort from it.

That's all you are now. A memory. A thought in my head. And you leave me here, alone.

Anger

WARNING: The following contains an implied instance of transphobia and thus may be distressing to certain readers. Also the word 'gringo' is used. Discretion is advised.

He knew he shouldn't really have been up here. He had to help the others in the juice bar. Grandma Micaela was out to get ingredients, and it was late afternoon in Agama, which meant heat and stickiness. Customers would be flocking into the bar in droves, and there'd be only two others tending bar. Both of whom would be rushed off their feet keeping up with demand.

But Valério Freitas needed to be in his room so he could work out some anger.